—and then all of a sudden Ed was pulling back, breathing hard, but in a very different way. He was also clutching at his neck.
“Are you okay?” Laurie asked.
Ed grimaced and gave a careful nod, still holding his neck. “Turned wrong, I guess.” He rubbed at the cord of muscle and winced again. “Fuck.” He sighed and looked down at the clock on the dashboard. “I should probably go home.”
For all his earlier hesitation to take this further, Laurie now found himself disappointed. Which made him feel guilty, because clearly he should be concerned. “Do you need me to drive you? Or do you want"—he shoved his nerves aside—"to stay over?”
That had been the wrong thing to say, though, because Ed scowled. “I'm fine. I just have to get up early in the morning.” He seemed to realize he'd been too curt and turned to try to smile—then winced again. He swore under his breath and rubbed at his neck a little.
“Ed.” Laurie tried to object, but Ed reached over and squeezed his hand.
“I'm fine,” he said quietly. “It just does this.”
“Okay. If you say so.” Laurie squeezed back. “Talk to you soon?”
“Yep,” Ed said, not nodding this time. He turned the music off.
Ed kept his eyes on the dashboard. Laurie hovered, thinking for a moment, then leaned over and brushed a kiss against Ed's cheek.
Letting out a sigh, Ed turned his head carefully and caught Laurie's mouth for a quick kiss. “Thanks.”
Laurie wanted to kiss him again, to offer to drive him again, to try to convince him to come upstairs. But he didn't. He simply smiled, crawled out of the car, then waved as he headed for the door to his elevator, where he went upstairs to his quiet apartment and went to bed alone.
Despite Laurie's best efforts to shelve thoughts of Ed, however, they lingered. As promised, Ed did call on Monday and even Wednesday, but both times Laurie thought he sounded down. He talked a lot about work, frustrated with his department and the volume of work they had to do, about the other people in his department, about possible layoffs looming.
“I hate this job,” Ed confessed, “but I need it. At the very least for the insurance.”
“What job would you do,” Laurie asked, “if you could have any job in the world?”
Ed laughed—bitterly. “I'd play football for a living. That's what I'd do.”
“Have you ever thought about coaching?” Laurie asked. “You're so good with the boys at the center.”
“That's not a job,” he pointed out.
“But it could be, couldn't it?” Laurie sank down onto the couch, tucking his feet up beside him. “What about at a school?”
“Have to be a teacher to do that.”
“Ah.” Laurie paused. “Well, you'd be a good teacher too.”
“My mother would love you.” Ed sighed. “I looked into stuff like that a while back. There was even an assistant director job open at Halcyon Center once. But the pay is terrible. I can't live on the salary places like that can pay, and very few come with insurance.”
Laurie chewed his lip thoughtfully, then gave up. “Well, it's a shame.”
“It's life.” Ed cleared his throat. “What about you? Do you like being a teacher? Or do you want to get back to the stage?”
The question was so unexpected that Laurie literally jolted. “Stage? No. No, no thank you.”
Ed laughed. “But you're performing next weekend!”
The very thought made Laurie queasy. “This is a special exception. It won't happen again. Just teaching for me.”
“Sure,” Ed agreed. “Probably boring now. You've done it all, I guess. Teaching is a sort of retirement? Resting on your laurels?”
“I guess,” Laurie said, but the picture Ed had painted seemed so hollow. Was that what Ed thought of him?
They'd made idle small talk after that, steering clear of all potential landmine conversations. Laurie had wanted to ask if his neck was bothering him, but he knew that would only upset him, so he didn't.
His mind stayed on Ed all week, though, and to his surprise his thoughts were most prominent when he was at his parents’ house.
On the way over, he kept finding himself thinking of what it would be like to bring Ed along to dinner. He wondered if Ed would be able to charm his mother or if they would fight. His father would probably look down his nose and go back to his paper. But it would be nice, he thought, to have someone to talk to besides his mother.
She, of course, launched into her campaign to get Laurie back onto the stage, dropping hints all through dinner. He got a brief respite when he took a ride with her afterward. But he hadn't been on a horse in a long time, and his seat, never exactly stellar to begin with, had degenerated significantly, which meant by the time they were back in the stables, he was quite sore.
“You should come out here more often,” Caroline chided him. “You used to have such promise at riding.”
Laurie grimaced as he rubbed at his backside. “Horses are your ambition, not mine.”
“And what
is
your ambition now, Laurie?”
And now the respite was over. He sighed. “Leave it alone, Mother.”
She hung her horse's bridle on its peg outside the stall and turned to Laurie, hands on her hips. “You're doing nothing but moping around that studio, letting Maggie run you like a surrogate wife. When you're not there, you're brooding at home.” Her nose wrinkled. “Or at that center. Honestly, Laurie. What on earth are you trying to prove?”
“I'm not trying to prove anything. I volunteer at the center because it helps Vicky and because my mother raised me to believe charity was important.”
“Don't be cheeky.” Caroline folded her arms lightly over her chest and lifted an eyebrow. “I want to know when you're going to reclaim your life. Dancing for Oliver is a good start, but it's just dipping your toe, darling. You need to get back out there. You need to reclaim your place.”
Laurie snorted. “I lost my place a long time ago.”
“Then make a new place. Start small. There's a benefit coming up this spring. Headline it. Show everyone how good you are. Remind them.
Beat
them, Laurie.”
“I don't want to perform, Mother,” Laurie snapped.
She pursed her lips a moment, then shook her head as her control gave way to her exasperation. “You have so much talent. So much promise. You could do anything you wanted, but you do nothing. You're better than that, Laurie. You deserve better than that.”
Usually by this point Laurie was exasperated too, but today he was just tired. “Can you continue this harangue over pumpkin pie? I'm starving.”
To his relief, that was the last they discussed the subject that day. He ate his pie in relative silence, the only sound the noise of his father's football game on the television in the den. But later, lying in bed, Laurie found himself rehashing the conversation with his mother. What had she meant, Maggie ran him like a surrogate wife?
Wife
? That was ridiculous, and he should have said so. He and Maggie were business partners and that was all. They weren't married in any way, literally or metaphorically, and they never would be.
But what rang worse than his alleged role in Maggie's life was his mother's insistence that he deserved better. He knew what his mother thought he deserved, and there was no way to convince her of that, but...deserved.
What, he wondered,
did
he deserve?
He thought of Oliver's comment about his father, still echoing in his head weeks later, amplified by the pain that had been having dinner with him, of having nothing, absolutely nothing to speak with him about beyond asking if there was any gravy left. He wasn't trying to turn his father's head. He'd given that up long ago. There were times he seriously wondered if the man was his father. Maybe his mother got Oliver drunk one night and decided not to tell her husband what had happened. It fit so much more than imagining he and Albert Parker shared a single gene. And yet he knew that wasn't the case. He had his mother's build and temperament, but he had his father's face, his nose, and even his jawline. Besides, he wasn't sure Oliver could get drunk enough to have sex with Caroline Parker. Surely he'd die of alcohol poisoning first.
Was this all because he should have had a better relationship with his father? Was that what was wrong with him?
He thought of Ed, drunk and insisting Laurie was blameless. Of Ed assuring him there was nothing wrong with him at all. Laurie found he wanted desperately for Ed to be right. He was tired of feeling guilty. Tired of licking his wounds and huddling in his studio. It wasn't his father or his mother or Paul or anything at all. It was just that he didn't want to dance anymore, not like that. Not in big flashy shows in New York and Toronto and wherever the big billings were. He wondered if this, more than guilt, was what had been holding him back. It wasn't that he was punishing himself as much as it was that he didn't really want anything anymore. But was that true? Did he really not want anything? What did he want to do? What did he want, period?
A vision of Ed's mouth sliding down his chest in the dark cut across his mind.
Ed, taking him in his arms as they prepared to dance.
Ed smiling.
Ed leaning toward him, eyes closing for a kiss.
Ed vulnerable and sad, looking like he needed someone to hold him and whisper that everything was going to be okay.
Laurie turned to his side and hugged his pillow against his body. He did want Ed. He wanted to dance with him. To be with him. To go to bed with him.
But that wasn't a life goal. That wasn't a career. That wasn't the sort of thing his mother had meant, wasn't what he was supposed to want.
Except it
was
what he wanted. It was, really, all that he wanted.
And what will you do when he gets bored with you? What happens when the sexy football player gets tired of playing around with the dancer? What happens when the right man flirts with him? What will wanting him get you then? Better to want to work. Better to want something else, something you can control. Something you know you can achieve.
But no matter how he tried, all Laurie could think of that he wanted was Ed.
Clutching tighter at the pillow, Laurie closed his eyes and tried in vain to sleep.
Ed's Thanksgiving was good but too quiet. He wished his sister had come back. It didn't feel like a holiday with just him and his parents, like it could be any night of the week. The food was good, but he couldn't help feeling lonely.
He wished he'd invited Laurie along.
Later that week he called him. He was nervous that maybe he was calling too much, but Laurie didn't seem to mind.
“Did you have a good day with your family?” Ed asked.
“Well enough,” Laurie replied. But he sounded a little too polite about it to Ed. He kicked himself again for not issuing an invite.
“I'm looking forward to Saturday,” he said, and he meant it. “I have my ticket.”
“Oh. Yes.” Laurie cleared his throat.
Uh-oh. Ed clutched at the phone. “Is it still okay that I come?”
“Yes,” Laurie said quickly. “It's fine. It...it's just—” He sighed. “I'm nervous.”
Ed laughed. “What?” But Laurie didn't laugh. He stopped. “You're seriously nervous? But why? You did all those fancy shows on Broadway and everywhere!”
“Not in a long time.” Laurie was quiet. Ed could hear the nerves in his voice now. “Honestly, I wish I hadn't let myself get railroaded into it. I'm not really ready to do so again, even in this small way.”
“You'll be great,” Ed said with conviction. “I have no doubt.”
Laurie's reply was soft, almost tender. “Well. It will be nice to know you're—” He broke off and cleared his throat again. “I hope you're right. And I hope you don't find it a waste of an evening.”
Ed would bet a million dollars Laurie had been about to say, “It will be nice to know you're there.” The thought made him feel warm. “I can't imagine I'll think that at all.” He grinned. “Anyway, you'll be wearing tights. You could just stand there, and I'd be happy, if you were wearing tights.”
“It's a children's performance,” Laurie chided but without heat. “Nothing lewd at all.”
“I'll save that for after,” Ed promised.
“Hmm,” Laurie said, his voice very soft now. God, Ed wished he were there with him. Or that Laurie was here.
He looked around his apartment and frowned. Well, not here. Not just yet.
“Speaking of after,” Laurie went on, “go ahead and come backstage once the performance is over. Ask one of the hands the way to my dressing room. It might be a while before I can get away, and I don't want you to have to wait out in the lobby. I mean—I guess I was assuming you did want to do something afterward.”
“Oh yes,” Ed agreed, and now he was the breathless one. But he looked around his apartment again, his concern mounting. “Your place, maybe?”
“Parking is hell on the weekends, I'm afraid. I have a spot, but you might have trouble. Would it be okay if we came to your apartment?” When Ed hesitated, he added, “Or not. We could just go for a drink or something.”
“We'll play it by ear,” Ed said, but he gripped the edge of the counter nervously. “Mostly I just want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you too.” He could hear Laurie's smile. “I should go. I'm actually in the middle of the grocery store at the moment. But I'll see you tomorrow? After the show?”
“Yeah,” Ed agreed. “See you tomorrow.”
They hung up, but Ed held on to the phone for a few minutes, staring out at his disaster of an apartment.
He thought about how good he had felt just hearing Laurie's voice in his ear. He imagined how good it would feel to have him here in his apartment. All night long.
He thought about Laurie's impossibly neat apartment and how he would react to seeing Ed's.
He thought about it all night long. The worry was prominent in his mind all the next day while he was at work, and it was still there Saturday morning when his mother stopped by.
“You look terrible!” she said, fussing as soon as she saw him. “Did you not sleep well? Is it your neck again?”
He hadn't slept well, but for once it hadn't been his neck, just worry. He grunted.
Annette clucked at him and breezed into his apartment. “You need some coffee.” She scanned the kitchen counter and frowned. “Of course, first we need to
find
the coffee.”